CEOh-Snap! It's Jobs vs. Ruby for Real Now!

It's been suspected for a while now, but PreCentral.net let us know that Palm has gone and made it all official-like:

Palm, Inc. (Nasdaq: PALM) today announced that its board of directors has appointed Jon Rubinstein to lead the company as Chairman and CEO upon the departure of Ed Colligan, who is stepping down after sixteen years of leadership at the company. Rubinstein, who joined Palm as Executive Chairman in October 2007 to help bring innovation back to the company, assumes his role as CEO on June 12. Colligan plans to take some time off, then join Elevation Partners.

As mighty Zeus did before him, Rubinstein came from Apple to slay the titans of Palm past and bring a powerful new pantheon of WebOS devices into their own.

So the former head of iPod hardware becomes the new head of Palm every-ware, and Ruby brings his vision of the iPhone-come-Pre head-to-head with the actual iPhone -- and more interestingly -- his once and former master, Steve Jobs.

Best of luck!

Meanwhile, TiPb would like to bid a fond farewell to Ed Colligan, who helped found the very industry we hold so dear. Many of us have owned many Palm Pilots and Visor and Palm Treo devices (and Dieter likely still has every single one of them on his desk!) and each was wonderful and innovative in its own time. Enjoy your much-earned respite and here's wishing health, happiness, and much success with your future endeavors.

Standing ovation

(And who knows, a year from now Colligan might just pop up at RIM with a new OS of his own -- how'd that be for poetry?)